Yesterday was a Really Dark and Enlightening Day in American Politics

credit NYTimes and 3 Chord politics on Instagram

Green zone: the US soldiers fighting for vegan food

from The Guardian:

The US military doesn’t provide plant-based meals, often leaving vegan service members to rely on snacks – but some are seeing a rise in like-minded comrades

John, a specialist in the US army, went vegan in 2018 while deployed in the Middle East after he started practicing Buddhism.

“I’m living in a world of violence by being in the military but trying to live the most peaceful lifestyle that I can,” John says. “Choosing not to be violent in my everyday life when I don’t have to be is something I wholeheartedly say falls in line with my religious beliefs and military values.”

The military will accommodate a kosher, halal and vegetarian diet for troops, but no meals ready to eat (MREs) – which deployed soldiers rely on for breakfast, lunch and dinner – are totally plant-based. Like other vegan soldiers, John often has to rely on snacks. He once spent a month eating just bread, crackers, peanut butter and canned vegetables.

“It was just a miserable time,” he says. “We were in the field and had one meal a day. I went four days straight eating exclusively green beans.” He was fatigued, an obvious problem for soldiers in combat. “You want soldiers to be at their most capable and their most mentally and physically prepared for any action,” he says.

John prefers not to use his real name because he is worried about further ostracizing himself.

He says he is often told he’s not a man if he doesn’t eat meat. “Someone told me that being vegan is against God and being vegan makes me weak,” he recalls of an exchange while standing in line for a physical. Because the man who said it outranked him, John didn’t argue.

“Part of being vegan in the military is learning that there are some conversations that aren’t even worth having with people,” he says with a sigh. “I get a lot of shit for it.”

While the number of vegans in the military has never been officially determined, John isn’t alone. Anecdotally, vegan service members I spoke with report a rise in like-minded comrades, one that reflects a larger social trend: in 2017, there were five times as many vegans in America as in 2014. Part of the problem in making the case for vegan MREs as well as more plant-based options in military dining facilities is that no hard data on the number of vegans soldiers exists. Both the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and the army public affairs office declined to comment on whether they have plans to evaluate how many service members either require or are interested in plant-based options.

The DLA, a federal agency that decides what goes in MREs, confirmed that currently no MREs are vegan but declined to explain why or say whether the military would consider changing this. “There may have been a vegetarian entree that was also vegan. To date, there has been no military service requirement for vegan MREs,” the DLA commented via email which also verified that four of the 24 MRE options are vegetarian.

A couple of weeks ago, a dining hall in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, became the first to offer a plant-based entree at every meal, thanks to the ongoing advocacy of one vegan soldier.

But at all other dining halls, service members have to put in requests for a plant-based option, though there’s no requirement for those requests to be fulfilled. Junior service members may not know it’s within their rights to make such a request in the first place. If they do know, they may not want to further differentiate themselves by making a special request, instead choosing to get by the occasional plant-based entree or sides of vegetables – though vegan service members say those are often cooked in butter – or the salad bar, if they’re lucky enough to have one.

“Two years ago, if you were to say the word ‘vegan’ to me, I would’ve told you to not bother talking to me about it,” Chief Petty Officer Thomas Shearin, a mechanic in the US Coast Guard stationed in Miami, says. “You weren’t going to recruit me. I didn’t climb to the top of the food chain to eat rabbit food.

“Growing up in Texas, if you ate tofu instead of barbecue chicken, you definitely didn’t grow up playing football,” Shearin says. Now, he no longer equates meat with masculinity and proudly makes his own seitan at home. Most significantly, and to his own surprise, his veganism has become about more than addressing his lack of energy, high blood pressure and fear of reaching the military’s maximum weight limit. In less than two years, he says it has also become an ethical stance for the environment and animals.

Shearin went vegan while stationed in Saudi Arabia, where he met Master Chief Petty Officer Eric Gibson, who has been vegan for more than five years – initially to appease his animal rights-minded wife before going “full vegan” to manage his health.

While both Shearin and Gibson say the transition has been doable for them in the Coast Guard, they note that their high rank and not being deployed helps. Unlike John, they don’t have to rely on MREs for food and rank high enough to feel comfortable asking dining facilities to provide a vegan option. They are more likely to be accommodated because of their rank.

Interestingly, the military already has prepackaged vegan meals; they’re just not for soldiers. A DLA spokesperson confirmed that while some meals distributed as humanitarian aid to civilians are not classified as vegan, “these meals contain no animal products or by-products, except that minimal amounts of dairy products are permitted.” Having vegan meals as humanitarian aid makes sense – plant-based food is more easily made halal, can be less perishable and may be less expensive.

Indeed, in California, where a new law gave incarcerated people the right to request plant-based meals, legislative analysis found that the vegan options might be cheaper than traditional prison food, saving the state money in the long term. Although the law is new, it means that California inmates, whether they identify as vegan or not, now have more access to plant-based food than US service members.

Financial incentives may be at play in the military as well. Gibson says he thinks a lot of the military’s decisions are linked to industries the government subsidizes, like dairy and meat. This is just one more hurdle, but it seems soldiers continue to look for plant-based alternatives. John says fellow service members now frequently tell him they met another vegan soldier that day – something he almost never heard four years ago.

Shearin has experienced this change too: “It seems like every unit that I go to and visit, I come across people that are vegan, or who want to go vegan and they’re just not sure how to do it.” He encourages them to try a one-month vegan challenge and tells them if he can go plant-based, anyone can.

“My view has changed,” Shearin says. “We have a responsibility to the planet we’re on right now. I tell people if they’re vegan three days a week, that’s three days a week that they’re helping the planet. I would call that a win for them and for me.”

Thanks Eric!

Tiny Concert - One of the coolest instagram accounts ever today FUGAZI

View this post on Instagram

Have a great week! @tinyconcert featuring #fugazi #ianmackaye #guypicciotto #brendancanty #joelally @dischordrecords #dischord #punkhardcore #dchardcore #punk #punkrock #ballpointpen #sketchbook #animation #tinyconcert

A post shared by Tiny Concert (@tinyconcert) on Feb 25, 2019 at 4:51am PST

School of Life Monday: The Problem of Fame

It sounds so nice to be famous - from afar. But from closer up, there might be a range of problems that make anonymity preferable. This is a film for recovering fame addicts (there are quite a few of us out there...).

Sunday Sermon: May He Rest In Peace ... Skip Groff (November 20, 1948 - February 18, 2019)

View this post on Instagram

Skip Groff (November 20, 1948 - February 18, 2019) To say that that Dischord Records wouldn’t exist had it not been for Skip Groff isn’t really a stretch. It was Skip that took The Teen Idles to Inner Ear Studio back in 1980 to record what would become Dischord #1 and it was Skip, having gone through the process with his own Limp Record label, that walked us through the steps of getting a record pressed. The very fact that he had his own label was a huge inspiration to a bunch of DC kids who had no idea how the music industry worked or that the ability to create records would be within our reach. And it was Skip’s record shop, Yesterday and Today, that first sold our records and it was Skip’s trust in us and belief in the label that led him to lend us money to press records when we were completely broke. Making the trip to his shop became an instant ritual for young punk rockers like those of us who were discovering a new universe of music and culture in the late 70s and early 80s. Y&T blew our minds. The breadth of Skip’s knowledge about music, especially music from the 60s, was staggering and to this day I’ve never met any other person who, given a song title, was more able to name the artist, composer, producer, label, and year of release. He used to say that, while impressive, this talent didn’t really have much of a practical application outside of the record shop (for instance, try putting a fire out with that sort of information), but I don’t think it was merely a party trick. In my mind it something akin to proof of a higher power. Skip clearly sought and found joy in music and it was through the vernacular of music that he empowered so many to experience the same. Skip, we love you! - Ian, Jeff, and Dischord Records

A post shared by Dischord Records (@dischordrecords) on Feb 19, 2019 at 4:12pm PST

NEIL BLENDER circa 1982 at the original combi-Pool at the Pipeline Skatepark in Upland California is a prime example

View this post on Instagram

This photograph of NEIL BLENDER circa 1982 at the original combi-Pool at the Pipeline Skatepark in Upland California is a prime example of the beauty we can find in the architecture, athleticism and ART in skateboarding and its culture. The image appeared for the first time in my book THE IDEALIST “In My Eyes 25 Years” you can read in my previous seven posts to find out what this book is all about, or on line search the title of the book. . . The link in my bio will take you directly to amazon page where it’s on sale, although it may be temporarily out of stock, take advantage of the low sale price while you can, because more books are being shipped to them as we speak (or search and find it anywhere you can for as little as you can). . . Although there are several skateboarding images and PUNK and Hip Hop photos, this book is an ART book with a political bend as well, with several essays scattered throughout, as i tend to do, from Ian MacKaye to Ralph Nader. From Cornel West to Ian F. Svenonius. And more. . . . This is one of my all time favorites. For the real art and photography buffs out there. 👊🏽✌🏽✊🏽 #FILM #Inspiration #Integrity #35mm #ART #Photography #International #TheIdealist #PUNK #Landscapes #skateboarding #LoudFastRules #sadlands #upland #pipeline #combipool #Beauty #HipHop #Composition #character #book 1976 -2001

A post shared by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Feb 22, 2019 at 7:48am PST

1st time the general public got to see LL COOL J, other than a live show, was a cameo in the movie Krush Groove, Here it is...

HE BLEW THE FUCK UP!

Study suggests that Flat Eartherism spread via Youtube

from BoingBoing:

The rise in a belief that the Earth is flat is bizarre and somewhat frightening, a repudiation of one of the most basic elements of scientific consensus. Texas Tech University psych researcher Asheley R. Landrum attended a 2017 flat earth convention and interviewed 30 attendees to trace the origins of their belief in a flat earth, finding that Youtube videos were key to their journey into conspiracy theories; her findings were bolstered by a survey of more than 500 participants.

Landrum presented her research at an AAAS meeting a year ago, and it paints a compelling picture of the role Youtube plays in spreading conspiracy theories.

I think that a good model for understanding the spread of these theories needs to also take account of the breakdown of epistemological consensus about how we know things are true.

This breakdown has at least two contributing factors: the first is a decades-long, deliberate campaign to undermine the consensus about how we know things are true, from the denial of the link between cancer and smoking to climate denial. The denial playbook starts with undermining the idea that science produces reliable outcomes, or that a scientific consensus can be trusted.

But denialism is greatly augmented by a legitimate perception of corruption in both expert circles and regulators. The anti-vax movement, for example, relies on two true facts to suggest an untrue conclusion:

* the pharma industry is corrupt and willing to endanger people for profit; and

* regulators are captured by pharma and willing to let them get away with it; therefore

* vaccines can't be trusted.

In a democracy that values free expression, it's hard to imagine how we'll get people to stop saying untrue things (though of course we can tweak our suggestion algorithms to stop prioritizing "engagement," which ends up promoting untrue things).

But we can (and indeed, must) address the legitimate concerns of conspiracy theorists: the ability fo self-dealing, powerful companies to get away with bad acts, and the willingness of regulators to let them.

If you want to learn more about Flat Eartherism, I strongly recommend this interview with Mark Sargent, a notorious Flat Earther, who talked with the skeptical podcast Oh No Ross and Carrie in late 2017. Sargent's frank discussion of his conspiracy theory mindset provides really important insight into an extremely frightening breakdown in reason in our society.

“Believing the Earth is flat in of itself is not necessarily harmful, but it comes packaged with a distrust in institutions and authority more generally,” she added. “We want people to be critical consumers of the information they are given, but there is a balance to be had.”

Landrum called on scientists and others to create their own YouTube videos to combat the proliferation of conspiracy videos. “We don’t want YouTube to be full of videos saying here are all these reasons the Earth is flat. We need other videos saying here’s why those reasons aren’t real and here’s a bunch of ways you can research it for yourself.”

But she conceded that some Flat Earthers may not be swayed by a scientists’ words. When the US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained how small sections of large curved surfaces will always appear flat to the little creatures that crawl upon it, his message was seen by some Flat Earthers as patronising and dismissive, Landrum said.

Believing in A Flat Earth [Asheley Landrum/AAAS] (slides)
Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers [Ian Sample/The Guardian]

in the mood for GRAFFITI ROCK Hip-Hop's Answer to American Bandstand in 1983

The Largest Vocabulary In Hip Hop

from The Pudding:

Rappers, ranked by the number of unique words used in their lyrics

By Matt Daniels

This project was originally published in 2014 and recently updated in January 2019 with newer lyrics data and 75 additional artists, including Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, Migos, and 21 Savage.

It compares the number of unique words used by some of the most famous artists in hip hop (that is, an example of a quantitive view of lyricism, once proposed by Tahir Hemphill). I used each artist’s first 35,000 lyrics. This way, prolific artists, such as Jay-Z, can be compared to newer artists, such as Drake.

GO HERE TO SEE THIS GRAFIC IN ALL IT's GLORY.

35,000 words covers 3 to 5 studio albums and EPs. I included mixtapes if the artist was short of the 35,000 words. Quite a few rappers don’t have enough official material to be included (for example, Biggie, Chance the Rapper, Queen Latifah, and El-P).

Since the original release, there’s now a notable trend of fewer unique words among newer artists. This is easier to see in the following chart, where I highlighted each artist’s primary decade, based on album release dates for their vocabulary calculation (the first 35,000 lyrics).

GO HERE TO SEE THIS GRAFIC IN ALL IT's GLORY

Some of the newer artists wield a smaller vocabulary comparatively, but this is not because hip hop has “dumbed down.” The genre has evolved; it has moved away from complex lyricism toward elements traditionally associated with pop music: repetitive song structure and singing (Joe Carmanica recently wrote about this trend for the New York Times, arguing that it was led by Drake, who popularized the rapping-and-singing formula over the past decade).

A better benchmark for Lil Uzi Vert’s word count (2,556) might be those of pop artists, such as Beyonce (2,433 words), or even one his major influences: Marilyn Manson (2,466 words).

There are also genre-bending artists. If Childish Gambino’s Awaken, My Love! is less hip hop in the traditional ’90s boom-bap sense, is it fair to compare it to vocabulary-dense Wu-Tang albums? Genre matters in vocabulary calculations—check out the chart below, which takes 500 random samples of 35,000 words from rock, country, and hip hop.


# of Unique Words Used in 500 Random Samples of 35,000 Lyrics from Country, Rock, Hip Hop

In short, if artists depart from hip-hop song structure, we’d expect their vocabulary to go down in the number of unique words.

That said, the results are still directionally interesting. Of the 150 artists in the dataset, let’s take a look at who is on top.

#1 - Aesop Rock

When I first published this analysis, I excluded Aesop Rock, figuring he was too obscure. The Reddit hip-hop community was in an uproar, claiming that Aesop would absolutely be #1. Sure enough, Aesop Rock is well above every artist in the dataset, and I was obliged to add him to the chart.

#2 - Busdriver

For the most recent update, I pored over requests from readers, and Busdriver was most common on folks’ wishlists. He and Aesop Rock are the only rappers with more than 7,000 unique words in their first 35,000 lyrics.

#4, #5, #7, #10, #15, and #20 - Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit

Wu-Tang Clan at #5 is impressive given that 10 members, with vastly different styles, equally contribute lyrics. Add the fact that GZA, Ghostface, Raekwon, and Method Man's solo works are also in the top 20 – notably, GZA is at #4.

#28, #54 - Outkast and E-40

Of course E-40 is in the top 20%; he’s considered to be the inventor of many slang terms. Just a few that he’s been responsible for coining or popularizing: “all good,” “pop ya collar,” “shizzle,” and “you feel me.”

Outkast’s expansive vocabulary is definitely a function of their style: frequent use of portmanteaus (for example, “ATLiens,” “Stankonia”), southern drawl (for example, “nahmsayin,” “ery’day”), and made-up slang (for example, “flawsky-wawsky”).

#49 and #59 - Busta Rhymes and Twista

Since both rappers are known for their speed, it’s nice to see that their verses are just as lyrically diverse as their peers’.

So what's all this mean?

io9 writer Robert Gonzalez blew my mind with this point, “On the Black Album track 'Moment of Clarity,' Jay-Z contrasts his lyricism with that of Common and Talib Kweli” (both of whom rank higher than him, when it comes to the diversity of their vocabulary):

I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars
They criticized me for it, yet they all yell “holla”
If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be
Lyrically Talib Kweli
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
But I did 5 mil - I ain’t been rhyming like Common since

I used a research methodology called token analysis to determine each artist’s vocabulary. Each word is counted once, so pimps, pimp, pimping, and pimpin are four unique words. To avoid issues with apostrophes (e.g., pimpin’ vs. pimpin), they’re removed from the dataset. It still isn’t perfect. Hip hop is full of slang that is hard to transcribe (e.g., shorty vs. shawty), compound words (e.g., king shit), featured vocalists, and repetitive choruses.

If you’re looking for more quantitative analysis of hip hop, check out Tahir Hemphill’s many foundational projects (and whose work initially inspired this analysis) and Martin Conner’s Rap Analysis.

Vocabulary count data is available here.

Notable artists currently excluded, under the 35,000 threshold: Cardi B, Dej Loaf, Princess Nokia, Rae Sremmurd, Dreezy, Remy Ma, Dej Loaf, Da Brat, Princess Nokia, Queen Latifah, Azealia Banks, Nav, Dreezy, Earl Sweatshirt, Eyedea, Jay Electronica, Pharoahe Monch, Pusha T, Saba, Waka Floka Flame, XXXTentacion.

The Pudding is a digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays.

School of Life Monday:Who are you to say that?

Getting agreement on big questions has become ever harder because we either put our trust in science or insist that everyone’s opinion is equal to everyone else’s. That might not be quite true

nice sunday song: The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored

SEX PISTOLS - NO FEELINGS

I've seen you in the mirror when the story began
And I fell in love with you I love your mortal sin
Your brains are locked away but I love your company
I only ever leave you when you got no money
I got no emotions for anybody else
You better understand I'm in love with myself,
Myself, my beautiful self

A no feelings
A no feelings
A no feelings
For anybody else

Hello and goodbye in a run around sue
You follow me around like a pretty pot of glue
I kick you in the head you got nothing to say
Get out of the way 'cause I gotta get away
You never realize I take the piss out of you
You come up and see me and I'll beat you black and blue
One day I'll send you away

I got no feelings
A no feelings
A no feelings
For anybody else
Except for myself, my beautiful selfish

There ain't no moonlight after midnight
I see you silly people out looking for delight
Well I'm so happy I'm feeling so fine
I'm watching all the rubbish, you're wasting my time
I look around your house, you got nothing to steal
I kick you in the brains when you get down to kneel
And pray, you pray to your god

No feelings
A no feelings
A no feelings
For anybody else
A no feelings
A no feelings
A no feelings
For anybody else
Except for myself
Your daddy's gone away
Be back another day
See his picture hanging on your wall

The Specials - A Message To You Rudy

Dead Kennedys - California Über Alles

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks

from the YouTuber who posted this classic:

John Peel's favourite ever song and not hard to understand why. Timeless teenage frustration in 2 and a half minutes of raucous pop punk heaven. Play it loud and feel free to pogo -- you know you want to.

Download their album Teenage Kicks on iTunes : http://apple.co/29ixys6
Buy their album Teenage Kicks on Amazon : http://amzn.to/29gNkye
Listen to Teenage Kicks on Spotify : http://spoti.fi/29hsenf

ROCK STEADY - A 1982 Documentary on The Rock Steady Crew from The Bronx

School of Life Monday: What Comes After Religion

The debate between believers and atheists usually goes nowhere. The real issue is: what should fill the gaps created by the end of widespread belief? What should fill the God-shaped hole?

Sunday Sermon:AOC Is Making C-SPAN Fun

from Jacobin:

The internal workings of American politics are usually boring as hell. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is making them compulsively watchable — and going after billionaires’ control of our political system in the process.

What might politics look like if elected officials — instead of being what too often seems like a collection of dead-eyed, factory-made automatons who speak from the same snooze-inducing, flavorless script — actually appeared passionate, engaged, and interested in looking after the interests of the people they represent?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be showing us.

One of the refreshing things about Ocasio-Cortez’s time in the national spotlight has been not just the fact that she talks about the issues facing the US in a direct, easy to understand, even entertaining way, but that she does it in the service of taking on the rigid power structures that control people’s lives.

She did this before she was even sworn in to Congress, famously tweeting about the way she and other freshmen are marched around during their orientation to be lectured by lobbyists and CEOs. What was apparently an unseemly but accepted norm in Washington’s political culture was suddenly outed to the rest of us because someone in the political class finally realized how creepy the whole thing was.

Ocasio-Cortez appears to be doing something similar with her newly won position on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which yesterday held a hearing on H.R.1, the House Democrats’ expansive anti-corruption and voting rights package. Watch this clip from yesterday’s session, in which Ocasio-Cortez plays a “lightning-round game” with the witnesses, in which she pretends to be a “bad guy” (“which I’m sure half the room would agree with anyway,” she adds with a smile) who’s trying to “get away with as much bad things as possible, ideally to enrich myself and advance my interests.”

In less than five minutes, and with the witnesses replying with barely more than a “yes” or “no,” Ocasio-Cortez gets across to the viewer:

- just how openly corrupt the current political system is (“you’re going to help me legally get away with all of this”);

- the lack of meaningful safeguards against corporate capture (“Is there any hard limit that I have in terms of what legislation I’m allowed to touch … based on the special interest funds that I accepted?” “There’s no limits”)

- how vulnerable the office of the president is in particular to moneyed influence (“Every person in this body is being held to a higher ethical standard than the president of the United States”)

- and that the very people serving with her on this august committee are most probably compromised by these interests too (“We have these influences existing in this body, which means that these influences are here in this committee shaping the questions that being asked of you all”)

That she does it all through the medium of a classroom game and with a sense of fun makes the whole thing even more remarkable to watch.

‘We have a system that is fundamentally broken.’ — Rep. @AOC is explaining just how f*cked campaign finance laws really are pic.twitter.com/sCwpkRzcHB

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 8, 2019

There are many reasons behind today’s widespread political disengagement, not least the suspicion that most of the people the public votes for aren’t really fighting for them. But even when politicians genuinely are fighting for their voters’ interests, they do so in the same, deathly boring, “serious” fashion that one can appreciate in the abstract, but few would willingly subject themselves to. Televising congressional proceedings was an important democratizing victory, but it was undercut by the fact that, short of salacious events like the Kavanaugh hearings, no one really wants to watch most of these people do their jobs. There’s a reason the public has gravitated to figures like Trump, despite the terrible goods they sell; meanwhile, even a charismatic figure like Obama was dull as chalk when he wasn’t giving a major speech.

Ocasio-Cortez has shown she can bring the style that’s made her a force of nature on social media to a committee hearing and, more importantly, do it in a way that makes clear to the public just how easy it is for the rich — or “bad guys,” to use her words — to control the political system. Here’s hoping someday she’ll get a chance to do the same on an issue like climate change, too.

BY
BRANKO MARCETIC

S A T U R D A Y . N I G H T

One of the most corny Saturday night songs ever made:


One of the most classic Saturday Night 70's rock songs ever:


One of the coolest most funky hip hop records of all time:


Kinda Gotta put this here: